Dating the Disciples & the NT

Dating the Disciples & the NT

Hi there ^_^

I hope there are people out there who can help me with this.

To the best of my knowledge, Jesus lived from approximately 5BC to 29/30AD. The New Testament contains the earliest writings about His life in the form of the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The earliest disciple wrote from about the year 50AD as far as I can tell (I willingly stand to be corrected).

If this is true, why the two decade gap before anyone writes about Him? Why didn't anyone write about His life while He was alive? Even His disciple, John, wrote about 100AD or 30 years after the books of Mark, Luke, and Matthew were written, but that means he would have had to have been ridiculously old to have walked with Jesus and have written about it. Did all four of these men walk with Him? Why did it take him so long to write about it?

Sorry for the attack of questions. I've wanted to ask them for such a long time and no one at my Church has been able to give me a decent response yet. Any advice you guys can give me will be awesome. There's only so much that Google can tell me.
 
Why did it take him so long to write about it?
Gospels were written as the eye witnesses started to notice all these accounts of a Jesus that did not exist, and they knew Him personally . the letters were probably written first . as for the dating . there are many ways to analyze the dating . i recall seeing fragments of the gospel of John in the early second century church father writings .. but not until the third century was the gospel of John acknowledged as one of the gospels . there are some that only acknowledge the first three .

Due to the fact that the disciples of Jesus Christ had to deal with "mystery cults" they had a tendency to keep the "straight goods" about the mysteries to themselves . so perhaps the gospel of John like the extra chapter version of Mark was a pastor's only version for a while . but then, as it is written "all that is secret will become known" .
 
Thanks for the reply ^_^

I've found some more information on it on this useful website:
When were the gospels written and by whom? | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry
It says that the earliest known Gospels were written by Matthew and Luke within 30 years of Christ's death.

I see what you mean about the mystery cults and problems of fake stories being spread about the Messiah. I was just wondering why, if the OT had prophecies in it proclaiming the Messiah, they didn't write anything about it until so many decades after His passing. It just seems incongruous, which makes me certain that I'm missing something. Some earlier writing or some other text that must have been written about Christ's life while he was still alive perhaps?
 
Cool, a little conservative estimate on the Matthew gospel but within the ball park definitely.

I'd say because Jesus said He'd be back soon the witnesses thought there was no need to write it down until they all started to get a bit older and thought .. hey .. soon to Him maybe a long time for me .. or something to that affect .
 
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